Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Yesterday I was having a great great day. After finishing my 9-11 AM class, I prepared my next few classes ahead of time and then met Huyen for lunch (something we can't often do anymore since her new job is farther away and she has less free time). After lunch I went to the swimming pool and swam for an hour. When I walked back into my room at 1:50 I felt fantastic. I looked at my phone on my desk and saw that I had 5 missed calls. I figured Language Link needed a sub because nobody else ever calls me in the middle of the day. I looked at the call register and indeed Huong, the class coordinator, had called me. I called Huong back figuring, heck, I've got nothing to do so I'll sub. Huong answered her phone in tears: "Ben, where were you?"BEN: Um, I was at the pool (I wanted to tell her how my belly was starting to shrink a little but she didn't seem in the mood.)HUONG: You were supposed to cover Peter's class!BEN: What?HUONG: You were supposed to cover Peter's class! Everyone yelled at me because of you.BEN: I'm really sorry but I didn't know I was supposed to cover Peter's class.HUONG: Don't say sorry. I hate you Ben August (yes, that's an exact quote).BEN: Huong, I don't know what to say but I literally had no idea I was supposed to cover Peter's classes. I covered for him on Friday and Sunday and he was at school this morning (Peter was indeed in the teachers' room while I was there earlier in the morning).HUONG: It doesn't matter that he was here he isn't teaching today.BEN: Honestly, I'm sorry but I didn't know.HUONG: I sent you an email about you covering last week.

As she said this I pulled up the email. The email had a chart in it for people to cover Peter's classes. This is the chart:

Class

Time

Date

Cover teacher

YL MV2

Sun, 8.30-10.00

Sunday, Apr 5

Ben A.

TE IN2

Sun, 10.15-11.45

TE PI2

Sun, 14.00-15.30

TE PI3

Sun, 16.00-17.30

GE PI2

MWF 13.30-15.30

Fri, Apr 3 Wed, Apr 8

Ben A.

GE IN2

MWF 5.45-7.15

Matt C

GE EL3

MWF 7.30-9.00

Jonathan

Viettel

TT 5.45 - 7.20

Tue, Apr 7

Imran

It is amazing how one line can make a difference. I had looked at the chart and saw Friday, April 3rd next to my name. I thought that was the only day I was covering besides Sunday. However, since the line wasn't below Friday, April 3rd it meant I was supposed to cover Wednesday too. Yeah, my bad. Even though I truly had no idea I was supposed to teach (I even told the class that I covered on Friday that Peter would be back on Wednesday) I'm definitely to blame on this one. The rest of the afternoon I felt like total crap that I had caused a nice girl to cry.